In 1994 about 14 years ago I started to use the Internet at the University campus. Very quickly Email became one of the most important tools for me and it is still today. However, with the upcoming of spammers and anti-spam measures Email has lost some of it's reliability.

I mean, are you sure you receive all important email messages, or are you sure all your messages you send are received?

I'll show you in a minute what I do to make sure Email works reliably for me, even for most important communication needs. Before that, let me tell you, how it all began for me (scroll down, if you are in a hurry).


How It All Began

Do you remember those times, when the “World Wide Web” and it's HTTP protocol were fairly new. I remember using the following services and protocols to find and research information on the Net. (This was not exactly fun and easy like it is today.)

• Gopher
• Archie
• FTP
• Email

Have you ever been frustrated, because business is not moving forward? You are giving it all, but success seems to be far away. Many business people know this kind of situation. Whether as part of a big team that they are managing or as solo entrepreneurs, who run on their own.

In my experience it is even harder for the lonely rider to cope with “lack of success”, because there is no social support by colleagues, no other department, nor the “stupid boss” that you could blame for lack of results. (There’s no big budget to cover up inefficiencies as easily as well.)

From the many different types of businesses an Information Product Business seems to provide many benefits, like

• low startup cost,
• high margins,
• and you don’t really need an office

You and me know that thousands of people try to get their Internet based business off the ground, but most of them give up too early.

Why is that?

They are overwhelmed by the amount of information and advice that’s available (either for free or for sale), they get it all, but what’s missing is the big plan that ties it all together.

A couple of days ago I have written, “Your Business Needs To Grow Continuously”. Today I want to combine that important fact with a very easy to do management or personal development practice, that helps you to achieve your goal, tune out distraction as you learn to focus on what's really important.

You will see it's not about time management or life management as some call it. You still have to come up with a way to use your time efficiently. Of course you can refer back to my original series of articles about Productivity and Time Management, “Touch It - Do It - Get More Done”. I wrote a total of 4 articles on that subject and they are available combined into a single PDF report in the download area for my newsletter subscribers. Actually the PDF contains some extra content that is not released on my Blog.

Might be the right time to sign up to my newsletter, right now. (To my existing subscribers: I'll send you the download info as soon as I have finished this post.) Sorry for the little detour.


Let's get back to productivity issues. The little, but nonetheless important advice I'll give you fits almost everybody.

While waking up this morning I suddenly found myself having a pen in my hand and scribbling 2 ideas for a new blog post on a piece of paper. Here is the first one.

Probably you can help me out and post as a comment, who had said the following originally.

“If your business doesn't grow it dies.”,

It is certainly true.

As the population grows, as markets grow, someone else will takeover your niche soon. If not, you are in the wrong market and hopefully close to retirement with enough retirement funds saved.

What are the drivers:

• Number of sales
• Average sales price

So why would you like the product of those variables to grow continuously, strictly monotonically?

This is not supposed to be a scientific article. No. I only want to get you engaged thinking about those issues in your own business. So I really only give you a short list and not much more.

Let's start out with a solo entrepreneur, because it's real easy to start thinking from this point on and the rest applies for big corporations as well.

Here is my Top-10 list, why your business needs to grow:

I have introduced my Fake Tit For Tat Blog Carnival in January as a means of saying “Thank You” to those editors that have used my posts. I thought it's time to do this right now. Therefore, I split February in 2 parts and will list the rest of the carnivals at the end of this month.

The main benefits of being present in the Carnival-O-Sphere is that you get more exposure easily. I just made up that term Carnival-O-Sphere. It doesn't take long to submit your current post to blogcarnival.com (↑). The Pro-Bloggers actually outsource that part and have their assistants do that rather simple task.


1. You get new readers.

Although this heavily depends on the quality and popularity of the Carnival. There are basically 2 types of carnivals in my opinion:

It seems that people respect their boss and they do whatever they demand — more or less — in exchange for their salary. That's how this boss-employee relationship works. What can you learn from this for your own business?

Even if you have changed the sides in the meantime and become your own boss, either as owner of your company or manager of a department, you will remember the days, when you worked late or on weekends to meet the deadlines given to you by your superiors. All of a sudden everything became less important: your plans for Friday night, the date with your new acquaintance, the movie premier, etc.

You absolutely needed to finish your assignment, because your boss would not accept any excuse and even could fire you. Even, if your assignment appears to be ridiculous to you.
Your boss is your boss.


I will cut a long story short (… and save your time).